


What Heaven is Worth.

by fearless_seas



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 14:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: “Do not think of it this way.” He pushed back in his chair and crossed his long legs underneath him. “Knowing hell will allow you to understand what heaven is worth.”





	What Heaven is Worth.

**Author's Note:**

> I adore these two so much.

_S_ ometimes, he thinks he sees _him_.

It’s one year later and the hum of his car engine is the only sound he can hear. The wheels brush autumn leaves as he passes, flying them up into the air before settling on the concrete. Jackie’s hands are shaking. The heat is off and the frigid weather creeps up his spine. His brown eyes flicker out the windshield as he drives, the branches reach out, covering a sliver of cloudy, flint sky. He swallows thickly, the long column of trees like the never ending shaft of his old racing car. It kept on going; as did he. Among it all, out the corner of his eye, _they’re_ here.

They grimace at the cold, reach over and dial up the radio while kicking their feet up on the dashboard. They shovel tufts of curly, ebony hair off of their forehead and cross their arms over their chest. Maybe, they grin widely and stifle out a joke (never able to get to the punchline, of course). A smile pulls at the corner of Jackie’s lips, ecstatically the tension in his shoulders dissipates and he turns his attention off the country road to the passenger seat. One of his hands hover mid-air to slip over their thigh. He pauses, the joy recessed, the extension drops; he’s all alone. Jackie feels weak, a sea of emotion wells fervently in his throat and a familiar weight presses at the hollow of his back. His brows furrow, his palm charges forward and shifts gears, his other rubs the leather tediously. All of his ribs simultaneously rivet together like steel bars, gravity pushing his foot to the pedal.

The speedometer climbs, everything rips by like a blur and he is shot back in his seat. He narrows his gaze on the lane, on the white lines or the murky sky. Sparks of rage lite up in his bones in a way he has not been able to sense for a year. The thrill of destruction or the ache of passion and excitement is there like an old forgotten friend. The car is screaming in a tunnel about him louder and louder. Everything whistles in his ears, he cannot feel anything but the sickening delight he takes in all this scenery. All he does is crave speed, tires and filthy grease--oh, and quite possibly,  _the burn_. Without realizing it, a thousand colors burst to life right before his eyes and he wonders if it is all a dream.

Red lips prying into a cherry smile.

Yellow sunshine of shifting expressions.

Blue. Always.

A ferocious roar brews in his chest, boiling, coiling and rising up from his abdomen. Jackie is hunched over the steering while like a predator. A stranger is tearing him up from the inside, shouting, hollering from within. In front of him there is a metal coffin gliding seamlessly on the track and three colored stripes on the helmet. For a moment he can envision the last time he saw him. The gentle fall breeze rustling up his hair and allowing the flaps of his suit to caress his neck. They blow him a kiss, fingers waving until the viser dropped and minutes later they're upside down, the tailend of the blue, Tyrell car overturned, folded on the barrier like a toy. Jackie remembers where he is, a year later, his own car skids on the road and he is flown from his trance. For a still moment he can picture his death or theirs--he’s not entirely sure. The stench of motor oil, curled, heating metal and smoke; Francois Cevert is dead.

The phantom of a hand folds over his own bicep as his foot eases off of the steaming brakes. _Stop Jackie_. The wind breathed softly as a prayer is spoken passed sun-kissed lips. He is sideways in a dirt side off and blood pulsates deep within his eardrums. Every ounce of fau strength washes out of him. A sickness brews in his stomach as though he has been left in the sun for too long. His entire body is trembling. To ease the anxiety he rests his forehead on the steering wheel. Everything is still, so quiet and deadly all the same. Soundlessness crawls past the car doors like a ghost.

 _“_ Please,” he pants, _let me go_ , _let me go to you_. He couldn’t imagine a silence quite this loud. _God, I am haunted I ways I seem to only know_.

 __'_ No, Jackie _.

“Francois--”

 _Don’t_.

But Jackie wanted to. He yearned for it. Hungered for them as nothing else, knew it on the particles of his sweating skin and woven into the fabric of his exhausted soul. He only opened his eyes once again, rubbed his fingers hesitantly over his quivering eyelids and felt the boundaries of light push and pry from beneath the flaps of sheath.

_You are you, that is all anyone could need._

“I am feeble, weak for you.”

Jackie forced his hands back to the wheel. He couldn’t see the road. Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore. Helen had a way of reading his wind. A year ago he’d crawled onto a mattress and stared at the wall of their hotel room for three days. He heard her sniffling silently, the door opening and closing and at the end of one day he saw Francois’s sunglasses sitting atop a pile of clothes from after she’d cleared his room. He awoke on the fourth day from a dream. Cologne and amber alcohol, a cigarette rolling between their pearly teeth. They entered with a smile, a wave, lifting the glasses up to reveal the diamond eyes beneath. The smoke was idle, tossing thick plumes of ash up about them. Jackie shot awake, it was two in the morning and his stomach was empty. The thick, putrid filth of darkness was over his well-developed depression. His cheeks stung.

 _“_ Francois is dead.” The words were foreign. Maybe the truth only felt him now, only managed to find him after those days. “Francois is dead.” Helen stirred in her sleep but he repeated it once more. For the first time, he cried. It shed like rain over a desert paradise. His wife gently placed a hand on his back and his head fell to the crook of her neck. He felt like a newborn child learning to breathe. It was like waves, ripples and tides seizing him, gripping him with grief. He fell asleep like this--tangled, wrapped in pain he understood too well. He let himself go until there was nothing left but airy sobs and a empty, shell of a soul like a hollow bullet. It went on burning up his sides and scarring him.

_“Do you think of Jochen sometimes?”_

_The question caught Jackie off guard and he spilled a bit of his coffee on the table as he dropped it. “What?”, he dabbed the mess with a napkin._

_Francois tilted his eyes down, a guilty expression musing him softly. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop and pressed his lips firmly together. “Rien. Nothing,” he tapped his cigarette on the ashtray between them._

__J_ ackie sighed, resting a head on his hand. “I do. Often," he replied._

_His friend smiled, “Ah, so you did hear me, no?” They were together, gaze never faltering until Francois took a drag and put it out on the ashtray, a little gush of smoke rising up from the stub._

_“Maybe I simply wish I didn’t so often,” the elder admitted._

_Francois waved his hand, “Do not think of it this way.” He pushed back in his chair and crossed his long legs underneath him. “Knowing hell will allow you to understand what heaven is worth.”_

It’s a year later again. Jackie is in the car and never understood that clearer than now. Too much hell, not enough heaven. The Scot pushed his foot on the accelerator and was off. He rubbed the tears from his eyes and focused on the road. He should learn from his friend and soak up each moment until his own final inhale. It is a soothing thought that a little piece of him still is with him, tucked at the corner of his fragile heart. Francois is in the seat beside him right now, although he’s buried sleeplessly in the ground. He knows this because he can hear them whispering to him.

_You’re going through a hell._

Jackie Stewart clutches a hand to his chest at this, he tightens his grip and smiles.

 _“_ But I know what heaven is worth.”  _You_.

_I'll be waiting, Jackie._

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed follow me on Tumblr @sonofhistory or @pieregasly
> 
> If you enjoyed, also please, please, leave a comment, I love them so much and they make my day. Even the tiniest of comments. Seriously. Thanks for reading!


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